Salmon Conservation

This section of the site is dedicated to information and comment regarding salmon conservation, fishery management and good practice for the protection of future salmon stocks.

During the last 30 years the numbers of wild salmon returning from the sea have fallen by more than half. The Atlantic Salmon Trust is an Atlantic wide organisation involved in the funding and sponsorship of practical research programmes tackling the problems wild Atlantic salmon and sea trout face today. They cite a number of threats faced by our Atlantic salmon and sea trout:

At Sea

Climate changes affecting feeding and survival opportunities

Fishing, including unintentional capture when fishing for other species

On the Coast

Interceptory mixed stock nets

Fish farms - sea lice, disease and escapees

Seals and dolphins

Pollution

In the Rivers

Cormorants and sawbill ducks

Seals and otters

Pollution and poor habitat

Obstructions such as dams, weirs and culverts

Disease

Poor angling practices

Poachers

Voluntary catch & release is the single most important conservation contribution that individual salmon anglers can make to the protection of future salmon stocks.